(WASHINGTON) — The first Afghans who worked for the U.S. military and diplomatic missions are being evacuated and will arrive in the U.S. late Thursday night or early Friday morning, according to a source familiar with the plans.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that they would arrive “very, very soon,” speaking during a press conference in Kuwait. He confirmed that the U.S. and Kuwait have had diplomatic discussions about hosting another group of Afghans, including during the day’s meetings, but he did not announce an agreement to do so.
These arrivals are the first after President Joe Biden’s pledged to support Afghan interpreters, guides and other contractors who served alongside U.S. troops and diplomats — many of whom now face threats from the Taliban as the militant group gains strength amid the U.S. military withdrawal.
Biden ordered all remaining American forces out of the country by the 20th anniversary this fall of the Sept. 11th attacks, which first brought U.S. troops to Afghanistan to destroy al Qaeda’s operations in the country and topple the Taliban government that gave them sanctuary.
Afghans who worked for the U.S. mission and now face threats for that work are eligible for a special immigrant visa program for them and their families. There are approximately 20,000 Afghans who have applied, plus their family members, according to a State Department spokesperson — although it’s unclear how many of them the administration plans to evacuate.
So far, the administration has announced that some 750 Afghans who have already been approved and cleared security vetting will be brought to the U.S., along with their family members — 2,500 in total. They will be housed and provided temporary services at Fort Lee, a U.S. Army base in central Virginia, for seven to 10 days as they undergo medical exams and finish their application processing.
A second group of some 4,000 Afghan applicants, plus their family members, will also be housed overseas, possibly including at U.S. military installations, according to senior State Department officials. A U.S. official told ABC News the administration has had conversations with Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and several Central Asian countries — Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
But during his visit to Kuwait, Blinken did not announce a new agreement with the U.S. ally to house Afghans there, where there are several U.S. military installations.
Blinken confirmed for the first time that the U.S. and Kuwait are discussing the mission, including in his meetings Thursday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but it seemed they were unable to reach an agreement.
“We’re talking to a number of countries about the possibility of temporarily relocating” Afghans, Blinken told reporters. “That’s one of the issues that came up in our conversations today, but we are very much focused on making good on our obligations.”
(WASHINGTON) — After nearly three decades behind bars, Joel Caston is seeking redemption through politics.
The 44-year-old felon, convicted of murder as a teenager, became the newest elected public servant in Washington, D.C., this summer, winning a groundbreaking election for neighborhood commissioner on the city’s southeast side.
“It sounds great to have an official title, I must admit that. However, what it feels like is that now I have to deliver,” Caston told ABC News in an exclusive cell block interview inside D.C. jail. “My constituents spoke by way of voting, and how I have to do great as I promised in my campaign.”
Many of Caston’s constituents are his fellow inmates, who were able to cast ballots in a June local election that has pushed the boundaries of voting rights and racial justice.
D.C. last year joined just Maine and Vermont as the only places in America that allow prisoners to vote. Caston is the first incarcerated American elected to office with votes from incarcerated peers.
“I’ve been locked up 26 years on the fringes of existence,” said inmate Colie Lavar Long, a first-time voter from inside jail. “So, when I actually put — checked that box, and they actually said that he won — this person I voted for — it, like, reaffirmed that, you know, I’m worthy to be back in society.”
Less than 1% of the nation’s estimated 1.8 million incarcerated residents have the right to cast ballots from behind bars, according to The Sentencing Project, a fact that sets the U.S. apart from many other large democracies.
“In most places, you don’t lose your humanity, you don’t lose your civil rights, social rights, political rights when you’re incarcerated,” said Marc Howard, director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University whose research shows civic engagement in prison can reduce recidivism.
Howard said it’s also a matter of racial justice. One in 16 Black American adults is disenfranchised because of a conviction, a rate 3.7 times higher than among non-Blacks, The Sentencing Project found in a 2020 report.
“If you think about the broader context in history of the struggle for the right to vote in this country, it started out being extremely narrow — white property-owning males — and then gradually was expanded to different groups. But incarcerated people was always a group that was left out of that progression,” Howard said.
Caston’s election is a milestone being celebrated by voting rights advocates in an otherwise challenging time for their cause.
The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, enacted to eliminate racial discrimination in elections, faces fresh challenges at the U.S. Supreme Court and from Republican-led state legislatures enacting an unprecedented wave of restrictive voting laws.
Efforts by President Joe Biden and Democrats to bolster and expand the law have so far faltered on Capitol Hill.
“Joel is making the impossible possible,” said inmate Ahmaad Nelms, who is serving an 18-month sentence in D.C. jail. “I want him to be the great commissioner he is, man, and show kids that you can be whatever you want to be.”
Caston’s district encompasses a historically black, low-income neighborhood on the far east end of Capitol Hill, including a nearby women’s shelter and luxury apartment complex, neither of which he’s seen or visited.
“A lot of meetings, a lot of engagement, has taken place over Zoom,” Caston said of his campaign and constituent outreach. “So now, as the ANC commissioner, one of the things I do have access to is a computer. I’m Zooming from the inside.”
The commission oversees ground-level issues of neighborhood residents, including liquor license approvals, sidewalk repair and public safety concerns.
“Some people are going to look at this with disdain, but a lot of people are going to think this is a man who is going to take a step in the right direction,” said neighborhood resident and Caston constituent Garrick Thomas.
Nika Hinton, another resident in Caston’s district, applauded the example he is setting for other inmates. “Maybe he’s going to take that experience and share how he got through it and so others won’t have to,” she said.
Caston said he’s out to prove the power of a second chance.
In 1994, it was in the same part of D.C. that as a teenager swept up in a culture of drugs and guns Caston was arrested and later convicted in the shooting death of another young Black man, 18-year-old Rafiq Washington.
“I was heartbroken,” said Delante Uzzle, Caston’s cousin and childhood best friend.
“You could get hurt walking to the store,” Uzzle explained of how unforgiving life on the streets could be at the time. “So, if Joel was fighting, we had to fight. If I was fighting, they had to fight.”
“As a teenager, I was once a drug dealer myself. I was once a gun man myself as a teenager,” Caston said. “And I paid a huge penalty for that, that’s my incarceration.”
D.C. Corrections officials say they believe Caston is fully rehabilitated and a model of redemption.
“I was shocked, but less surprised [that he won election as commissioner],” Uzzle said. “I won’t be surprised if he becomes mayor. That wouldn’t shock me one bit.”
Even the family of the victim in Caston’s crime has given their full endorsement, telling ABC News in a statement: “We believe in forgiveness!!!!!! … and we hope Joel will do good work in the community!!!”
Behind bars, Caston has taught himself Arabic and Mandarin, studies the bible in French and Spanish, created a mentoring program for young inmates and has published a curriculum of books that teaches the basics of investments and savings.
“We want people on the inside thinking like citizens,” he said. “If we can get them thinking this way while they’re in the inside, the overarching goal is that that would be the mind set on the outside. So we change the narrative.”
When he’s released on parole — expected later this year — Caston said he intends to lobby for greater enfranchisement of Americans behind bars even as the idea remains highly controversial.
“It’s called punishment. Punishment for their crime. And it’s unconscionable to me that we’re even debating this,” Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., said earlier this year during floor debate of H.R. 1, House Democrats’ sweeping election reform bill that would have restored the vote to millions of ex-felons. Republicans were universally opposed.
While 21 states automatically return voting rights to incarcerated Americans upon release, 16 withhold the vote through periods of probation or parole, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Eleven more suspend the right to vote indefinitely for some crimes.
“It’s absolutely outrageous and indefensible,” said Howard. “Even though they’ve served their time, they paid their debt to society, they’re supposedly having second chances, yet they can’t participate in our democracy.”
Just weeks after the campaign, Caston is already inspiring a new generation of voters who see a stake in politics and public service.
“I think all lives matter, all voices matter, everyone’s voice matters,” Caston said. “And I think that when you look at a story like mine — and oftentimes we would just cast off individuals who are inside of incarcerated spaces and think that he or she does not have a value — I believe that my story demonstrates that, yes, we do have value.”
(FRESNO, Calif.) — It’s 7:51 p.m. on a warm Friday night. Fresno, California, police officer Bret Hutchins and his two partners are checking on a burglary call. The 911 caller reported somebody broke into a garage and they can hear them banging around inside. The officers are having a hard time finding the burglary when their police radios come alive. Dispatch puts out the call of shots fired with a male victim down.
ABC News was riding along on this night. As the officers sprint back to their patrol SUVs, we ask, “What’s going on?” After advising dispatch that he is responding, Hutchins says, “Victim of shooting, let’s go.” We jump in, slamming the patrol doors as Hutchins hits his lights and sirens and we scream off to the growling sound of the Ford Police Interceptor giving what seems like all of its horsepower.
Speeding through the streets of Fresno, onlookers standing to get into clubs watch and take pictures as we zoom by with sirens blaring to the latest act of violence in the city. On the police radio, another responding officer asks, “Did anybody see him get shot?” Dispatch relays that the caller found the man down.
As we pull up to the scene, Hutchins says aloud to himself the license plate numbers of every car pulling out to memorize them in case they could be a suspect fleeing the area who they will need to track down.
We arrive to a victim down, shot multiple times. Medics are still minutes away, so Hutchins and his partners grab medical kits from the back of their patrol vehicles and sprint toward the man who is unconscious and badly bleeding.
“Okay, I have one entry wound right here,” Hutchins tells his partners as they begin CPR. “One, two, three, four, five, six … ” Hutchins counts as he begins doing chest compressions on what would become Fresno’s 42nd murder of 2021. Shell casings litter the area. Who shot the man is unclear in the moment, but a search for a killer would get underway. In the hours that followed, homicide detectives would canvass the area for any tiny amount of evidence.
Like many American cities, Fresno is dealing with a sharp surge in gun crime. Fresno has a population of 525,000. Its population is bigger than Kansas City, Missouri, Pittsburgh or Cleveland, but operates with a fraction of officers of some smaller cities.
“What we’re seeing, yes, is a peak in violent crime,” Paco Balderrama, the city’s new police chief, told ABC News. “And there’s a lot of factors in that.”
Balderrama became the chief of police in Fresno earlier this year after spending much of his career in Oklahoma and in Texas. Since arriving, he has been tasked with figuring out how to reduce the surging violence in his city. The vast majority of the gun violence is related to gangs and the guns are most often illegal.
“I’m talking about people who have been to prison who have no business carrying a gun. Active gang members. People who are intending to hurt somebody in a crime,” Balderrama said.
At a time when many cities have seen their police budgets cut and amid calls to defund the police, Fresno is in a unique position in that it is rapidly trying to hire more officers to battle the crime. The city council and community groups have given support to the idea of bringing on more officers. Fresno is looking to hire 120 new officers in the next 18 months. Part of that effort is making up for attrition but others are additional positions to increase lagging police ranks.
“I think (120 officers) is a goal we can reach. We asked the city council for $125,000 in the budget toward recruiting for a new recruiting video, for billboards, for wraps for some of the cars,” Balderrama said.
He knows the department needs to rapidly increase officer numbers in this time of high crime without lowering standards. Convincing people to become a police officer is a tough task right now due to a year of negative headlines, public perception, and pressure on police, he said.
In the meantime, Balderrama’s department is looking for unique ways to end the violence with current staffing. One of those ideas is a program called Advance Peace or AP. Advance Peace is less than a year old in Fresno, partially funded by the city. Its mission is to interrupt gun violence before it happens.
Members of Advance Peace are sometimes former gang members and are close to the gang community. They get to know young gang members, foster relationships with them and try to give them other ways to get out their anger.
The group focuses on mainly young men who are prone to violence. “Before he commits a gun crime, he’ll call us,” Aaron Foster, who works for Advance Peace, told ABC News. “We try to get out in front of it.”
Foster lost a son and a daughter to gang violence in Fresno in recent years. Now he works in the community to gain the trust of gang members.
“We know them mostly because we saw them grow up as a kid. When he was in junior high school, we knew this kid would be the next round of shooters,” Foster said.
The staff at Advance Peace say they often get calls from young gang members they are mentoring who say they have just shot somebody and need advice on what to do next. The group will counsel them but, in order to keep their trust and credibility, does not turn them into police. Advance Peace lets police do their investigations without being a source of intelligence. Yet, when members believe there is a gang shooting coming they may tell police they should have units in a certain area beforehand to prevent violence.
Balderrama said he supports Advance Peace as one idea that might help reduce the violence in his city.
“When you build relationships you have influence. If you have no relationships you have no influence,” Balderrama said. “Advance Peace gives us the ability to communicate and give people resources.”
Advance Peace staff member Marcel Woodruff becomes emotional as he shows a shelf of pictures and funeral programs for those victims of gun violence the group has worked with in the past year. The list of names is long.
“There’s nobody else actively seeking shooters who say ‘Hey, I wanna take you to get some Popeye’s Chicken,'” Woodruff said. “It is unique in that we are the only group saying we want those who have been deemed to be the most lethal in our city and want to build a relationship with them because we inherently know they’ve been the most unloved.”
Leaders of Advance Peace say they are constantly defending themselves against critics of the program who believe the city is simply paying gang members to reduce violence. The organization works to justify its existence and relies on its own fundraising to keep much of the program up and running.
Across the country there is a long list of ideas on how to best reduce gun violence during this nationwide surge. California Assemblymember Marc Levine, a Democrat, is working on a bill that would place a 10% tax on guns and 11% tax on ammunition sales in California.
The money from the higher taxes would go toward gun violence prevention programs and is designed, like taxes on cigarettes, to maybe also deter some from buying guns and ammunition if they cost more money.
Levine said the amount of money raised through the gun tax would be substantial and would be put to good use. “These are proven programs to reduce gun violence in our communities. It would raise $100 million annually.”
But critics of Levine’s bill say it would not stop street crime in California cities because much of it is being done with stolen or so-called ghost guns that have been manufactured by an individual rather than a commercial gun manufacturer. Or, critics say, if somebody does want to buy a gun through a store or dealer they will just go to Nevada or Arizona to buy what they want through dealers that are willing to sell.
Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, believes such taxes and other laws punish legal gun owners.
“We have 400 million guns in private possession in America,” Paredes said. “Any focus you put on reducing the number of guns in public is just not going to work. That horse has left the barn.”
Police point out most of the guns they come in contact with are illegally obtained and harsher gun laws likely would not impact how they are bought and sold on the streets. Paredes argues the crime surge the U.S. is experiencing is a result of not enough police on the streets, lenient prosecutors and courts, and mental health issues.
“As long as they continue to look for solutions by controlling guns through laws only affecting law-abiding citizens, because they are the only ones who obey the laws, we are going to see an increase in the violent crime rate and use of firearms in commission of crimes,” Paredes said.
Police say the increasing problem is homemade ghost guns, which are made using parts that can be purchased online or in stores and assembled in a home. They are primarily unregulated, unregistered and untraceable by typical means, police said.
Paredes counters that ghost guns aren’t the problem police and the media make them seem to be and that ghost guns arguments are a way to ignore the bigger mental health problem suffered by those committing violence. “The whole issue of ghost guns are a red herring,” Paredes said. “I believe it’s elected officials deflecting.”
Officer Hutchins in Fresno feels differently, though, as he is racing from call to call. “Lately, it’s been the ghost guns that are the problem,” said Hutchins.
Limiting access to guns being made in secret or illegal guns being passed around under the radar has proven to be tough to fix. Few seem to agree on the problem, let alone a solid solution. Marcel Woodruff at Advance Peace said gun laws won’t fix the street crime problem. He believes it has to be a longer term solution by showing gang members how to live more fulfilling lives so they don’t turn toward shootings to get what they want.
“So if we deal with the violence at the systemic and structural levels that are denying people access to things they need to move through life healthy, then we consequently reduce them using a firearm to make a way for themselves,” said Woodruff.
For now Fresno police remain busy moving from shooting call to shooting call.
This story is part of the series Gun Violence in America by ABC News Radio. Each day this week we’re exploring a different topic, from what we mean when we say “gun violence” – it’s not just mass shootings – to what can be done about it. You can hear an extended version of each report as an episode of the ABC News Radio Specials podcast.
(NEW YORK) — Disney Parks has updated its mask policy for all visitors regardless of vaccine status after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its mask guidance following the surge in COVID infections.
The high-traffic theme parks in Florida and California announced late Wednesday that beginning Friday, July 30, all guests are required to keep masks on while indoors, including when entering all attractions and in Disney buses, monorail and Disney Skyliner.
“We are adapting our health and safety guidelines based on guidance from health and government officials, and will require Cast Members and Guests ages 2 and up, to wear face coverings in all indoor locations at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort,” Disney Parks said in a statement.
The news comes days after the CDC’s call for a return to masks in public, indoor settings due to the transmissibility of the fast-spreading delta variant.
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC News
While a group of Senate negotiators have come to an agreement on the bipartisan infrastructure plan, there is a larger battle brewing over the $3.5 trillion Democrats-only plan focused on “human infrastructure.”
That budget reconciliation plan aims to make vast investments in social priorities like health care, paid family leave, education and climate change. It would require that all 50 Senate Democrats be in lockstep agreement. In short, they’re not.
“I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion,” wrote Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., in a statement Wednesday.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., responded to Sinema via Twitter with her own warning saying in part, “Good luck tanking your own party’s investment on childcare, climate action, and infrastructure while presuming you’ll survive a 3 vote House margin.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has already said she wouldn’t bring that bipartisan plan to the floor for a vote without the passage of the budget reconciliation plan. The president has expressed confidence in the bipartisan plan but is still selling that human infrastructure plan to Americans across the country.
“As the deal goes to the entire Senate, there is still plenty of work ahead to bring this home,” President Joe Biden wrote in a White House-issued statement. “There will be disagreements to resolve and more compromise to forge along the way.”
The president’s latest statement foreshadows what he must know is to come — a continued uphill battle to get these major agenda items done.
The RUNDOWN with Alisa Wiersema
In its weekly COVID-19 forecast Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that cases, hospital admissions and daily deaths will increase over the next four weeks. That trajectory, along with the agency’s recently revised masking guidance, is adding to an already tense and partisan atmosphere in the nation’s capital.
As reported by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega and Sarah Kolinovsky, Biden is expected to announce Thursday that federal employees will be required to be vaccinated or else they must abide by “stringent COVID-19 protocols like mandatory mask wearing — even in communities not with high or substantial spread — and regular testing.”
Although the president also said the nation will not be heading back into a 2020-esque lockdown, Republicans seized on the changing messages coming from across the aisle.
By retracting advances toward a return to normalcy, some Republicans argued it will now be more difficult to get unvaccinated people to take the vaccine.
House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy said the return to using masks is “casting doubt on a safe and effective vaccine,” despite the CDC adding that the return of mask requirements is based on a surge of highly transmissible variants.
McCarthy also said the move “is not a decision based on science.” In response to that comment, Pelosi’s office said she believes the view “is moronic.”
The TIP with Quinn Scanlan
New Yorkers had something to say Wednesday about the body that runs elections in America’s largest city.
“It’s almost as if the Board of Elections is trying to overtake the MTA in most chastised public agency,” quipped state Sen. John Liu during the Standing Committee on Elections’ first of many hearings about voting and elections in the Empire State.
Those testifying before the committee, and the senators present, were in universal agreement that significant reform is in order for the NYC BOE, which has been plagued for years by headlines like last month’s, when 135,000 “test ballots” were mistakenly added to preliminary ranked-choice voting results for the city’s Democratic mayoral primary.
Reform will take time, and potentially a constitutional amendment, but it’s needed to rid the BOE of its chronic “cronyism” culture that’s led to unqualified, deeply partisan people running elections, witnesses testified.
“I really have no issue with the culture of nepotism and favoritism, but I do want the nepites and the favorites to be competent,” said Henry Flax. “Sadly, this is not the case.”
More hearings are set for next week in Syracuse and Rochester and the chairman urged voters to, like voting itself, make their voices heard.
(NEW YORK) — With 155 days left in 2021, humans have already surpassed what global resources can sustain in a single year, according to international sustainability organization Global Footprint Network.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when demand for Earth’s ecological resources exceeds what the planet can regenerate. This year, the date is July 29.
The Global Footprint Network, which calculates the date each year, said humans currently use 74% more than what the planet can remake.
Mathis Wackernagel, CEO and founder of Global Footprint Network, told ABC News Radio to think of the resource deficit like a bank account.
“How long can you use 70% more than Earth can renew?” Wackernagel asked. ”You can use more than your interest payment for some time, but it reduces the asset base. And what we see as a consequence, for example, is the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere or deforestation.”
The Global Footprint Network found that the total global ecological footprint increased by 6.6% compared to 2020, based on data from the International Energy Agency and the Global Carbon Project.
Last year, the global forest biocapacity — the natural resources in forests — decreased by 0.5%, mainly due to a large spike in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Forests are a key to slowing climate change because they can store carbon for long periods of time.
“Last year, we had the lockdown. The lockdown changed behaviors instantaneously, quite radically, but just changed behaviors for that time,” Wackernagel said. “It didn’t change the system. So we’re back to where we were before in terms of resource demand.”
The Global Footprint Network estimated carbon emissions in 2021 will be 4.8% higher than 2020, but it will still be below 2019 levels, when the overshoot date was July 26.
According to the organization, the world has been overshooting the planet’s resources since the 1970s, when Earth Overshoot Day was late in December.
The date has since moved up five months, but the rate at which the date has moved up the calendar has decreased. In the 1970s, the day was moving up three days a year, now it moves less than one day a year on average over the past five years.
These are worldwide numbers, though — if the rest of the world consumed resources the way the United States does, according to the organization, the overshoot day would have been March 14.
Wackernagel told ABC News overshoot will end someday.
“It’s a question whether we do it by design or disaster,” Wackernagel said. “All of the global downturns are associated with disaster rather than design, like oil crises, financial crises, pandemic. They have pushed us down, and eventually, it will push us down if we don’t do it ourselves. We can choose a comfortable path, or we will be hit by crises.”
There are ways to push Earth Overshoot Day back.
According to an analysis by the Global Footprint Network and Schneider Electric, retrofitting existing buildings to be more energy efficient and decarbonizing electricity could move the day back 21 days. If everyone in the world decreased their meat consumption by 50%, the date could be pushed back 17 days.
“If we moved Earth Overshoot Day out six days every year continuously, we’d be down to less than one planet before 2050,” Wackernagel said. “But given the huge climate debt, we may have to move faster.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is likely to announce a vaccine requirement for the nation’s federal employees Thursday, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
The decision is dependent on an ongoing policy review, which could determine whether employees will be able to opt out of vaccination and instead, undergo regular testing and continue masking.
“It’s under consideration right now,” Biden said of a vaccine mandate for federal workers Tuesday afternoon. “But if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
“Our goal as a federal employer is to keep our employees safe and to also save lives,” principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
For the nation’s nearly 2.1 million civilian federal workers, many questions about the move remain unanswered. The possible requirement also raises ethics questions, since the vaccines have not been fully authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.
Pfizer, Moderna and the Johnson and Johnson vaccines were granted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), but the FDA is facing pressure to issue full authorization of the vaccines, which could open the door to mandates in schools, and the military.
“The FDA recognizes that vaccines are key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and is working as quickly as possible to review applications for full approval,” FDA spokesperson Alison Hunt said in a statement.
David Magnus, the director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, argued that the step was not ethically needed to require vaccines, given they have proven to be safe and effective in their current use.
“I don’t think that the FDA approval versus the EUA should have any bearing at all on whether or not a mandate is put in place,” he told ABC News in an interview.
Magnus argued that the expected announcement could leave workers with some choice on vaccine, but a consequence for not getting the shot.
“Some of the vaccine mandates — I believe the one that’s proposed by Biden, and the one that’s been put in place here in California are actually quite soft. They’re not really mandates,” Magnus said.
“They’re requirements, but not mandates, because not only do they have exceptions allowed, the consequences of not being vaccinated are not that this is a condition of employment. It’s that if you fail to do this then you have to take other public health measures to ameliorate it, like regular testing and wearing a mask at all times,” he added.
But Department of Justice lawyers have concluded that the law “does not prohibit public or private entities from imposing vaccination requirements,” even for vaccines that are not yet fully approved by the FDA, according to a July 6 opinion from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
“Although many entities’ vaccination requirements preserve an individual’s ultimate ‘option’ to refuse an EUA vaccine, they nevertheless impose sometimes-severe adverse consequences for exercising that option,” the DOJ legal analysis concludes, citing, for example, refusal to enroll students who refuse to vaccinate at a university.
In June, a federal judge in Texas ruled in favor of a Houston Methodist Hospital, which was sued by 117 employees over the hospital’s vaccine mandate.
“Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the COVID-19 virus. It is a choice made to keep staff, patients, and their families safer,” U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes wrote in the opinion.
The leading plaintiff, the judge wrote, “can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else.”
One professional association representing federal employees, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, expressed concern about the expected vaccine requirement Wednesday.
“Forcing people to undertake a medical procedure is not the American way and is a clear civil rights violation no matter how proponents may seek to justify it,” association President Larry Cosme said in a statement. “We would therefore encourage the administration to work collaboratively with FLEOA and other federal employee groups to incentivize all federal employees to be vaccinated, rather than penalize those who do not.”
The expected vaccine requirement comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released revised mask guidance on Tuesday, calling for fully vaccinated individuals in “high” or “substantial” transmission level areas to resume wearing them.
Departing the White House for a trip to Pennsylvania Wednesday, Biden was seen unmasked exiting the Oval Office, despite Washington being considered a “substantial” transmission area. Biden’s destination, Macungie Township in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, is considered a “moderate” transmission area, so the president did not don a mask there.
But shortly after the CDC’s announcement Tuesday, White House reporters were instructed to resume wearing masks while indoors by the White House Correspondents Association and Vice President Harris was seen wearing a mask during an indoor meeting.
Harris was blunt about the development.
“No one likes wearing a mask,” she said Tuesday. “Get vaccinated. That’s it.”
(UNITED STATES) — While authorized vaccines have proven safe and effective in holding the line against COVID-19, they are not 100% effective. Reports of uncommon breakthrough cases among fully vaccinated Americans, coupled with the delta variant tearing through the country, threaten to undermine the fiercely fought wins against the pandemic.
For the fully vaccinated who do test positive, if you are at high risk for severe infection, health experts are now turning to Food and Drug Administration authorized, virus-fighting monoclonal antibodies in some cases. They are saying it’s safe and beneficial for those who have been vaccinated, but get infected with COVID-19 nonetheless.
“Receiving antibody treatments in a timely manner could be the difference of ending up in the hospital or getting over COVID (quickly),” Dr. Shmuel Shoham, infectious disease physician at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told ABC News.
Monoclonal antibodies are synthetic versions of the body’s natural line of defense against severe infection, now deployed for after the virus has broken past the vaccine’s barrier of protection. The therapy is meant for COVID patients early on in their infection and who are at high risk of getting even sicker to help keep them out of the hospital. This risk group includes people 65 and older, who have diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiac disease, obesity, asthma or who are immunocompromised.
It can be administered through an intravenous infusion, or a subcutaneous injection, which is less time-consuming and labor-intensive, and more practical in an outbreak situation.
The therapies still in use across the U.S., like Regeneron’s antibody cocktail, has shown to hold up against the variants of concern, including delta.
It’s a new use for a therapy whose authorization predates that of the vaccines.
“The trick is to proverbially cut the virus off at the pass,” Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Though a fraction of breakthrough cases have symptoms, the few that do may need backup to fight off the infection, experts say.
“There are exceptions. Everyone has seen a handful of patients who are vaccinated, you get very, very sick. Those are by and large, people with many risk factors, and perhaps people were vaccinated longer ago, with people in whom we don’t expect the vaccine to work as well,” Dr. Andrew Pavia, Infectious Diseases Society of America fellow, NIH COVID treatment guidelines panel member and chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine said.
Clinical trials for monoclonal antibody therapies were conducted prior to vaccines’ authorization, before shots started going into arms and far before breakthrough infections were a part of daily discussion. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specifies that for vaccinated people who have subsequently contracted COVID, a vaccine should not preclude seeking further treatment.
The chances of an allergic or adverse reaction is low, experts said. Regeneron’s product targets the virus, not a protein produced by the body, a company spokesperson said — so, it likely wouldn’t trigger a haywire immune response with an antibody “overdose” from both the vaccine and the monoclonal therapy. And clinical trial data has shown authorized monoclonal antibody therapies can sharply reduce hospitalizations and deaths by as much as 70%.
A Regeneron spokesperson said as long as a patient has tested positive for COVID and meets the other criteria to receive the treatment, they can receive the therapy.
“We are not screening those patients out. If they have been vaccinated and come in testing positive and are at high risk for a more severe infection we are giving them monoclonals,” Schaffner said. “I think that was decided pretty quickly.”
It’s a question of targeting the appropriate group of infected patients, experts said and it’s not for anyone who has symptoms after testing positive. Doctors prescribe the therapy for patients with specific risk factors that make them unlikely candidates for fighting off the virus on their own. With your antibodies already being made to combat coronavirus, experts said another helping won’t do as much good.
But Shoham calls it a “missed opportunity” for patients eligible to receive it — who don’t.
“If they had gotten a monoclonal antibody, their chance for hospitalization would have been significantly reduced,” Shoham said.
“The vaccines are so good, that most people who have one or two risk factors that are vaccinated are less likely to become infected, and if they are — the vast majority have done very well,” Pavia said. “What we’re trying to do is identify that small sliver of people with breakthrough infection that may get quite sick.”
The antibody cocktail medications work best if it is delivered within days of a positive test or onset of symptoms. So, doctors recommend acting quickly after getting a positive test to seek treatment, if the high-risk criteria fit — whether you have been vaccinated or not.
“This is a targeted treatment that is not for everyone — it’s not ‘spaghetti at the wall’ for when vaccines don’t work,” Schaffner said. “But this is good news on the therapeutic side.”
ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Jamie Manning says she was excited earlier this month for a day of solo shopping in small towns outside her hometown of Washington, D.C.
It was something she would do frequently before the coronavirus pandemic, but this particular Saturday marked the first time she had done something like this in over one year.
As she sat down for lunch alone at a local restaurant and waited for her food, Manning said “my mind started to wander and I began to spiral.”
Describing the thoughts that raced through her mind, Manning, 32, explained: “There are a lot of people here. It’s really loud. I feel a little woozy. I hope my food gets here soon. I probably just need to eat something. I feel like I need to get out of here. I can’t leave because I need to eat. What if I pass out? I don’t know anyone here. DC feels so far away. Why did I come here alone? I can’t catch my breath.”
The panic attack Manning experienced was not one she expected. But as she recovered and thought about it later, she realized it was due simply to trying to reenter the world after more than a year spent socially distanced and isolated from people during the pandemic.
“I kind of felt sensory overload,” Manning told Good Morning America. “It wasn’t that I was as nervous about getting sick, it was more like, ‘Wow, I haven’t been in an environment for a very long time and it’s a lot to take in.'”
Manning shared her experience in a post on Instagram and received dozens of replies from people describing similar experiences.
“It used to be really normal for me, so I was surprised I had the reaction that I did, and I was surprised by the amount of messages I got,” said Manning. “Anything we can do to normalize these feelings and help people feel like they’re not alone is important.”
The struggle some people have faced as the country has reopened over the past several months is to be expected, according to Divya Robin, a New York City-based psychotherapist.
“For the last year to year-and-a-half we’ve been repeatedly told to stay home, wear a mask, social distance,” said Robin. “That’s been the message that’s completely wired in our brain. We were almost trained to be fearful of seeing people, fearful of the virus.”
“Now we have to give our brain time to adapt again, to shift again what we’re doing,” she said. “We have to think back to March, and the time it took then.”
The increased anxiety felt by many people mostly stems from the uncertainty and lack of control around the pandemic, according to Robin.
Those feelings may be even more intense now as the United States faces a COVID-19 summer surge as the delta variant spreads.
“We all have a fear system in our brains and that’s where anxiety stems from,” she explained. “We’re used to day-to-day there being a few times that it’s activated, like if you’re walking on the street and a car comes near you.”
“Over the past year of the pandemic and what’s going on now with the uncertainty around new variants coming and cases rising, it’s been activated nearly constantly,” Robin added. “That’s one of the reasons anxiety has shown up for more people.”
Anxiety can show up in different ways for different people, from overwhelming and worrisome thoughts to physical symptoms like chest tightness, fatigue, brain fog and difficulty concentrating and focusing, according to Robin.
While it’s important to know and expect that anxiety may arise, it’s just as important to have tools to handle it, she noted.
Here are five tips from Robin to help handle anxiety in a post-pandemic world.
1. Be patient with yourself:
Robin says to think of preparing yourself for a return to the office and social events in the same way you would think about getting back in shape after time away from the gym. In other words, patience.
“Two or three years ago, we’d be able to go three or four happy hours a night, and now many of us don’t have the energy,” she said. “It’s like if you go to the gym every day and run five miles and lift weights and then you don’t do it for a year-and-a-half, it’s hard to do.”
“But with time and training, it comes back,” added Robin.
2. Set small goals:
In order to train yourself to essentially be social again, Robin suggests setting small goals, like a new activity each weekend, or meeting a different friend weekly for coffee, for example.
“Don’t feel like you need to totally jump into things,” said Robin. “Start small and build your way up, just like any training program.”
Manning said she learned that lesson the hard way now looking back on her own experience.
“One of the learnings I took is I tried to do much at once,” she said. “It was easy to be like, ‘OK, great, everything is normal again,’ but I had to acknowledge that it was a lot for me to do a whole day outing and to be more intentional and ease into it.”
3. Try not to compare yourself to others:
Every person has a different perspective on and approach to post-pandemic life, so don’t compare yourself to others, recommended Robin.
“Be real with yourself about what your limits are instead of comparing yourself to other people,” she said. “Really resist the urge to compare, especially because that can cause more anxiety.”
“Instead, think about what feels right for you.”
4. Practice deep breathing:
If you feel yourself having anxiety thoughts or physical symptoms of an anxiety attack, Robin recommends practicing grounding and deep breathing techniques.
“Think about where you are in the moment,” said Robin. “If you’re sitting with a friend, feeling the sensation of your feet on the ground, your back leaning on the chair. Feeling grounded in where you are.”
“And for deep breathing, focus on really feeling your belly as you inhale. You want to feel like a balloon is being inflated inside your stomach.”
5. Pay attention to your thoughts:
Noticing the thoughts that you’re having can help you to not give into your anxious patterns, according to Robin.
“Anxiety a lot of the time stems from thinking of things that are outside our control,” she said. “Notice when those [anxious] thoughts come up and be aware of them, but don’t ruminate. Try to stay with one thought instead of ruminating and running away with all the worst case scenarios.”
New vaccine requirements for federal employees expected to be announced by President Joe Biden Thursday “very well” could mean troops will be required to get the shot, a senior Pentagon official told ABC News on Wednesday. But if not, it still may only be a matter of time.
Because COVID-19 vaccines are available to the military under the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorization (EUA), the shot has so far been strictly voluntary.
“It is not FDA approved, and therefore, it is still a voluntary vaccine,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters earlier this month. “I would like to add that as we speak, almost 69% of DOD personnel have received at least one dose. That’s not bad.”
By last week, the proportion of fully vaccinated troops had risen past 70%, based on data from the Department of Defense. That’s significantly higher than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s estimate of 49% for the U.S. population as a whole.
While the DOD can’t independently decide to force service members to take a vaccine that isn’t fully approved, the president “may under certain circumstances waive the option for members of the armed forces to accept or refuse administration of an EUA product,” according to the FDA.
Biden said Tuesday that a federal mandate is “under consideration” and sources familiar with the discussion told ABC News the president is likely to announce federal employees will be required to be vaccinated, or else abide by “stringent COVID-19 protocols like mandatory mask wearing — even in communities not with high or substantial spread — and regular testing.”
The president demurred on the issue when asked by ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers as he arrived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday.
“I’m talking about made in America today, that’s all I’m going to talk about,” Biden replied. “Tomorrow I’ll talk about whatever you want to talk about, including COVID.”
If Biden doesn’t include service members in a mandate for federal workers, one could still come later.
Pentagon officials have publicly said they would consider requiring COVID vaccinations, as is done with more than a dozen other vaccines, after the FDA fully approves the vaccines.
“I believe that when it’s formally approved, which we expect pretty soon, we probably will go to that, and then that question will kind of be moot,” Vice Adm. John Nowell told a sailor in a town hall question-and-answer video posted to Facebook last month.
On July 1 the Army Times reported it had obtained an internal Army memo that said commanders should “prepare for a directive to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for service members (on or around) 01 September 2021, pending full FDA licensure,” the order said.
“As a matter of policy we do not comment on leaked documents. The vaccine continues to be voluntary,” Maj. Jackie Wren, an Army spokesperson told ABC News. “If we are directed by DOD to change our posture, we are prepared to do so.”
Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense and ABC News analyst, said evidence should determine the issue.
“Readiness has always been a key component of any military, especially one as expeditionary as the U.S. Ever since the existence of vaccines they have been a part of the readiness capability,” Mulroy said. “If the medical professionals in the CDC and the DOD determine it is safe and critical to protect our force from COVID and all its variants, then that should be dispositive on the issue.”
So far, the Pentagon has not announced any official decisions for the future.
“There has been no change to our use of the vaccine as a voluntary measure of protection,” Kirby said in a statement to ABC News Tuesday. “We continue to urge everyone in the department to get vaccinated.”
A defense official confirmed on Wednesday that this stance has not changed.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Molly Nagle and Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega contributed to this report.
